Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/120

114 through his blood, yet he must go and face him and end the thing.

It came over him with a pang that he was very young; that life was barely a taste in his mouth, whether bitter or sweet he could not tell. He picked a flaming stick from the fire and went before a little round mirror on the wall.

Back at him stared the face of a boy. He had seen so much of the grim six in the last day that the contrast startled him. They were men, hardened to life and filled with knowledge of it. They were books written full and ready to be ended. But he? He was a blank page with a scribbled word here and there. Nevertheless, he was chosen and he must go. Having reached that decision he closed his mind on what would happen. There was a vague fear that when he faced McGurk he would be unmanned again and frozen with fear; that his spirit would be broken and he would become a thing too despicable for a man to kill.

One thing was certain: if he was to act a man's part and die a man's death he must not stand long before McGurk. It seemed to him then that he would die happy if he had the strength to fire one shot before the end.

Then he tiptoed from the house and went over the snow to the barn and saddled the horse of Hal Boone. It was already morning, and as he led the horse to the door of the barn a shadow, a faint shadow in that early light, fell across the snow before him.